While Halo's developer is best known for their Xbox games, the studio is …

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While we know that the folks at Bungie Studios are hard at work on Halo 3: Recon, any other projects in the works are still a mystery. But while we don't know what they are working on, we do know that they are exploring their platform options, which could mean branching out from Xbox 360-exclusive development.

"No, we're not (tied into a specific platform for new IP)," Bungie community and PR director Brian Jarrard told GameIndustry.Biz. "We haven't gotten that far yet, to be totally honest. In theory, we do have every means to go out and find the right ecosystem, the right partners, to align with. So who knows what the future will bring us?"

But while they may be exploring their options, Jarrard is quick to praise the 360, which has provided the studio with a great deal of success. "For us, the 360 has been great because there's just been this great synergy with Bungie because all of our games have this inherent social community aspect," he explained. "Everything we've ever done has this very big online component—we, together with the Xbox consoles, have continued to push that Live experience, the whole notion of a party experience forward."

Jarrard goes on to cite the success of Halo 3 as an example. "We haven't really seen much of a decline in play, and we recently surpassed the lifetime number of games ever played on Halo 2—so we're talking about four years of Halo 2 boiling down to about 1 year of Halo 3. It's been pretty astounding, and to see our fans stand by us, it's even more reason why we want to do Halo 3: Recon, just to give something back and extend the experience a little bit longer."

Given the fact that Microsoft owns the Halo IP, any multiplatform releases would have to be non-Halo related games. Which could mean that Bungie is either working on a brand new franchise, or attempting to re-establish an existing one. Here's hoping for a new Marathon.